Lifestyle

Ukiyo and Your Girl Pho doing it different at Kennedy Art Ball

WITH his utopian-sounding electro music, 21-year-old Perth multi-instrumentalist and producer Tim Arnott, AKA Ukiyo, wants to take you to another place.

Whether it’s a fantasy land within the mind, or high in the Austrian Alps (beautifully showcased in his new video clip for single Go), it really doesn’t matter.

“When I started making music it was surrounding my parents’ divorce, so it was a kind of escape for me and since then it’s not so much of an escape,” Arnott said.

“Maybe it still is a little bit: I sit down and start making music and I take myself off to somewhere else.”

The rising Perth star has embarked on a rather idyllic journey to success in the past two years.

Since taking the Japanese name Ukiyo – which translates to ‘floating world’ – and launching onto the scene in 2016, Arnott has enjoyed such triumph that he’s flung his day jobs aside.

He recently played Groovin the Moo festival in Bunbury with heavyweights Duke Dumont (UK) and Portugal. The Man (USA) and just recently added Hollywood A-lister Will Smith to his fan base.

“I started sending my music to some YouTubers and told them they could use it for free, which a lot of people don’t do, and one big YouTuber used it and then there was a ton of them wanting to use it,” Arnott said.

“I had some pretty big YouTubers, including Casey Neistat (US personality) and PewDiePie (Swedish personality). Will Smith created a YouTube channel and he has been using my music as well.

“I then started doing live shows last year in Perth and one show lead to another and then I was doing one a week for ages and that helped me get my name locally and from there I got support from people like Triple J.”

Later this month Arnott will take to the stage at the annual Kennedy Art Ball at the Art Gallery of WA.